Review: Blood and Oil: Mohammed bin Salman's Ruthless Quest for Global Power

Blood and Oil: Mohammed bin Salman's Ruthless Quest for Global Power by Bradley Hope
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hooter: An Investigative Journalists' POV into the rise of MBS and his vision for Saudi Arabia

Piecing together through candid interviews, researching through documents - these two journalists have pieced together a fast paced thrilling behind the scenes look of the rise of MBS as he navigates the political web of Saudi Arabia and the interlinked geo political world to achieve his vision for himself and his nation. Building up from a background of the political ecosystem that he landed up in and how major pieces around the world play in for him or against him, you get a sense that politcal dramas like Game of Thrones often don't have to go too far from reality to garner inspiration. The petrodollars, religious sentiments across the spectrum, the new restless demographics, the urge to create a legacy - the authors try to cover a lot of aspects that made it to the public domain - Khashoggi, the Ritz Jail, Davos in the desert, NEOM, Trump's visit, Qatar blockade and numerous other interlinked events in the region and what was at stake behind the scenes. The interviews I think help build a softer aspect of the personality that MBS is against the cold hard dry facts of the events and the actions that were taken making for an intriguing political thriller whose story has just begun - as we know his legacy is probably yet to be written.

There hasn't been much literature I have accessed about the Middle Eastern political ecosystem and I feel this has been a good read to get a sense of it specifically from MBS point of view and Saudi's Vision 2030.

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Review: Valmiki's Women

Valmiki's Women by Anand Neelakantan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Anand takes on different threads of Ramayana from the perspectives of some of the women characters who in the popular versions get a very small but pivotal black and white role defining the course of the entire storyline. He tries to play out back stories and shares the narrative from their journey. This obviously adds a fresh perspective to the stories that we have linearly heard and imbibed into our thought process. Take for example Manthara who triggers the 14 year vanvaas for Rama , Shantha - his sister who only yearned for a father's love from Dashrath but always was overshadowed in his quest for a son, Tataka - a demoness he kills , Meenakshi and the concept of Bhoomija.

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Review: The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness by Eric Jorgenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hooter: A compilation of Angel Investor Naval Ravikant's tweets and insights on wealth creation and personal happiness.

For starters, wealth and happiness are two sections in this book and not intertwined incase someone thought the same based on the title. That said because it is a compilation and not a self written book, the biggest plus this book has it goes away from "My perspective of the world is awesome hence I am successful and you should see how I did well through that perspective" complex that a lot of self help books do down with. Instead here it is a series of statements and insights that Naval made through his tweets / tweetstorms and the background to why in a concise manner. This book is packed a with truckload of ideas so I am sure to refer back to it time and again to see if there are ideas I can leverage for the challenges I face at that point in time versus having stored all that info in my head.

Couple of major takeaways start off with "learn to love to read" and don't read purely because it is cool to do or a chore because that is where information seemingly is available. Breadth is important but depth is even more. So focus on one, build depth, move on to next and build depth and so on.
Money is not wealth is another key takeaway.

Another big plus is the author is giving away the ebook for free so easily distribution channels for anyone who is interested. Let me know if you need a copy too.



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Review: The Last Queen

The Last Queen by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: A historical fiction account of Rani Jindan - the Queen Regent of Punjab before the British takeover

Pulling out stories of Indian history that mainstream had forgotten is what I'd give Chitra Banerjee credits for picking up the life of Rani Jindan and sharing the Indian freedom struggle from a woman protagonist's perspective which pokes holes into the hero complex versions we end up reading.

The journey was from a young girl - a kennel keeper's daughter to the Queen regent is a rags to riches story we always have a soft corner for but the challenges that come in between seemed very plain and could be considered as fodder for a soap opera to pick up on. Challenges come as easily as they go and I feel there is a lot of caricatures or better phrase it as single dimensional side cast that are thrown in for the plot line to move on. Makes for a good one time read but nothing that captures your imagination. Full marks on the research and maybe that is where most of the focus remained at.

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Review: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hooter: A brief historical narrative on the empires and nations specifically from a trading perspective and hence the silk roads - not specifically the traditional Silk Route alone.

How the whole world is inter related and political decisions in one corner and one era ring true through the decades and centuries is what this book focuses on. From ancient trade routes and visits in Eurasia upto China to American policy in the Middle East - the book cuts across a lot of centuries and geo-political scenarios often correlating obtuse events through a subtle underlying thread. There is a very obvious Westerner's perspective to world history but interestingly does try to not whitewash imperial and colonialism related tragedies a large part of the world has had to face over the centuries a lot of it driven from Europe in the recent past.

The book tries to capture a lot of events through the years and does a decent job at tying that chronological order focused through the lens of primarily trade and commerce and the quest for making money as a trade off to demolishing cultures and civilizations.

I have a feeling I'll be wanting to redo this as there was a lot of information packed into this that makes for heavy reading. But to the perspective of how much data it has packed in, the author does a great job at ensuring it isn't completely dry.

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